Apple preps for "Black Friday" holiday bonanza

Apple Computer is gearing up to launch its annual "Black Friday" sale next week, in which it will offer price cuts on various Mac and iPod products in a 24-hour bid to usher in the holiday shopping season with a bang.

The one day event extends from the company's online store to its national retail chain.

Last year's sale included a $101 savings on iMac G5s and iBook G4s, as well as $30 discounts on JBL On Stage iPod Speakers and $20 savings on JBL Creature II Speakers.

Similarly, Apple offered $100 off select Shure Sound Isolating Earphones, and $30 off its AirPort Express and iSight products. It also offered $5 discounts on select iPod accessories and price cuts on some software titles.

About the same time Apple kicks-off its Black Friday festivities, the company is expected to announce "holiday store hours" at many of its retail locations. Unlike the Black Friday sale, the extended hours of operation will run through the entire holiday shopping season.

The Mac maker will also be sprucing up its retail store window displays and handing out attractive print copies of its "Holiday Gift Guide," showcasing its most popular iPods, Macs and accessories.

On Thursday, the company briefly took its Apple Store offline to make changes to the online version of this years gift guide, displaying it more prominently to web shoppers.

Traditionally, Apple has pre-announced plans for its Black Friday bonanzas but kept specific discounts and sale items a secret until the day of the sale.

Thanksgiving. Here in the States it's the holiday that's celebrated by a 2 day orgy of consumption. The first day (Thursday) everything shuts down so that people can gather with families and friends and gorge themselves on roast fowl, jellied cranberries, mashed potatoes, and disgustingly sweet yams with marshmallows. The second day (black Friday), traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Retail outlets typically will offset the time off/goodwill extended to their employees the previous day by opening at the butt crack of dawn for the onslaught of angry shoppers looking for a few dollars off of the latest toys and trinkets for their spoiled brats. Fistfights over the last available Tickle Me Elmo or other garbage are not uncommon, in spite of the fact that most of these toys will be discarded or tossed in a corner a few short months later. God, can we please just skip ahead to January?

Thanksgiving. Here in the States it's the holiday that's celebrated by a 2 day orgy of consumption. The first day (Thursday) everything shuts down so that people can gather with families and friends and gorge themselves on roast fowl, jellied cranberries, mashed potatoes, and disgustingly sweet yams with marshmallows. The second day (black Friday), traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Retail outlets typically will offset the time off/goodwill extended to their employees the previous day by opening at the butt crack of dawn for the onslaught of angry shoppers looking for a few dollars off of the latest toys and trinkets for their spoiled brats. Fistfights over the last available Tickle Me Elmo or other garbage are not uncommon, in spite of the fact that most of these toys will be discarded or tossed in a corner a few short months later. God, can we please just skip ahead to January?

ROFL. When I was in San Fran Bay Area for about 3 years, once or twice we had "vagabond Thanksgiving" for those away from their families - we'd go to a friend's place and cook up a storm (well my friends at least, I just brought some booze) and stay overnight because everyone's too drunk and too full with food to even move by the end of the day. Ah, memories.

I might get sick of Thanksgiving if it was full-on every year though. No Thanksgiving in Australia, no mad bash-up shopping the next day. There *are* Boxing Day (next day after Christmas) mad shopping sales at major dept. stores here though. Sometimes they too get ugly. Particularly for those pissed off at not getting what they wanted the day before (Christmas). Heh.

You have been severely, strictly warned. This is officially the worst web page ever for this decade. Prices are quite good, although I had an aneurism trying to find RAM or even take in any of the other prices.

For you buyers in Los Angeles..
I was in the Best Buy in West Los Angeles and they have the previous models Macbooks and Macbooks pros. I asked if they were sending them back to Apple and they said they were blowing out all the discontinued Macs at 5 am Black Friday. The manager there said I could buy the entry model Macbook for $899.99! Its the first generation with Intel core duo but so what. They also had the Macbook pros too. This is the info I got that day. He also said they had the most inventory and the other Bestbuys weren't as aggressive in pricing which I believe because I was at another store and they had none of the older macs.